Me: Hmm, I'm going to play this old David Cage game. Can't be that bad.
David Cage: Sex QTE
Me: what
David Cage: Push the analog stick to FUCK
The thing about playing Quantic Dream stuff in 2024 is that we know it's not going to go well. Several years ago, it was possible to have a generous interpretation of David Cage's works by assuming he was just an eccentric man who adored movies and who was trying to make this new brand of adventure games work. QD's games are different from the norm, even if their quality is inconsistent and their content, often questionable. And yes, Cage does have a history of displaying an inflated ego in public, but one could excuse that as hustle from a person who has to confidently sell unusual ideas.
Of course, since the Quantic Dream lawsuits, looking at things kindly like that has gone from hard to impossible. It now is publicly known that the company is a cesspool, that its founders are crooks ("I'm not under oath, so can I lie?" is more unforgettable than any line in a QD game) and that the auteur at the center of it all is by no means a misunderstood genius, but a bigot and a jackass. Well, alleged bigot and jackass, one might say, as many of the cases are still on-going, but the problem is, the mere knowledge of what went on during those trials informs the consumption of the works and prevents any sort of charitable interpretation.
Why am I saying all this? Because Indigo Prophecy desperately needed a charitable interpretation.
Its opening is deceptively strong: The bathroom at a diner. A man inside the stall, shaking. Possessed by a cloaked figure. He gets up, opens the stall door. An older man, washing his hands. Doesn't see the first man walk up behind him. He falls to the ground and is stabbed, again and again. The murderer raises his head, his task done, and comes to his senses. His name is Lucas Kayne, and he will need the player's help in order to flee the scene without being caught.
Lucas is not the only playable character, however, as once he is home free, we cut to detectives Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles, who arrive at the scene of the crime to investigate the gruesome murder. These scenes very quickly and effectively establish a central mystery as well as a (criminally underused) cat-and-mouse game that our protagonists are about to play. There's tension and intrigue to work with, backed by surprisingly good voice acting for a game of its time, as well as an exceptional orchestral score by the late Angelo Badalamenti of all people.
All of which is wasted by the most worthless vision, starting with the thoroughly incompetent writing. Anyone who's read reviews for Indigo Prophecy has probably heard that the game falls off during the last third, and it must be clarified that those reviewers are overselling the story: in truth, the script's quality begins to decay almost immediately after the opening, completely jumping the shark by the halfway point. The final third is simply when time and money started to run out and plot points had to be compressed, but no investors or sequels could ever have saved such drivel.
To call the writing amateurish would be hyping it up: Indigo Prophecy is what one would get if they took an 11-year-old boy, took him to watch some of IMDB's top rated films, then asked him to pen his own movie. The result would likely be a jumble of incongruent themes and lousy plot devices, much like this one: Would you like a detective story, a supernatural one, or sci-fi? How about all three? Because IP is a game about mayans, AI, interdimensional bugs, the Force, the military, Dragon Ball fighting, visions, racist stereotypes, the Illuminati, getting impregnated by the undead, alien tech, secret societies of homeless people, irradiating the undead baby with the alien tech...
And that's not even mentioning the awkward rip-offs of famous and successful films: Silence of the Lambs, The Matrix, you'll know it when you see it. However, it's the power fantasy at the core of it is the most embarassing: Lucas Kayne is our 11-year-old's OC, a mediocre man at first that becomes The Chosen One, the almighty saviour of humanity, becoming ever more powerful in a barrage of scenes of escalating absurdity. Of course, he also gets to sleep with all the women, who for some reason find him irresistible.
Carla and Tyler, on the other hand, while initially promising to replicate the buddy cop dynamic from old police movies, become almost set dressing by the halfway point. Carla, in particular, has her personality and motivations entirely wiped by the end of the story in order to achieve a conclusion that's entirely centered on Lucas. There are three endings, entirely decided by the player's performance in the last scene, but whichever one the player gets, the story ends on an egregious note of Heavy Rain-grade bullcrap, and they're not even allowed the pleasure of an ending where everyone dies.
Speaking of Heavy Rain, as painful as it is to give any kind of credit to that game, Indigo Prophecy is the predecessor and it shows. The whole QTE gameplay was still getting figured out, and most of the scenes use this Genius-style UI that has you moving the analog sticks in the directions it shows to pass each scene. That it's garish is a given, but it's the nonstop prompts having nothing to do with the action onscreen that stings. In later games, there's far less inputs to perform and they all have something to do with the action and/or motion going on in the screen, fostering some sort of connection while allowing the player to watch what's happening.
Then again, early on in IP, you do push the analog stick forward over and over to make Lucas thrust into a woman, so maybe less connection can be good in some situations. It might sound like I'm making a big deal out of this, but it goes back to the idea of interpreting things charitably. Indigo Prophecy could maybe be written off as a camp classic if some credence could be given to its creators. Instead, the sex minigame reads as childish; the numerous movie rip-offs, "Citizen Cage" posters and "New Movie" instead of "New Game" in the main menu all register as pretentious slop; and the questionable depictions of race, gender and mental illness are perceived as intentional and heartfelt.
If anything, the fact that Quantic Dream got any investors for its later games after delivering this rubbish is a sign that, at the very least, they have some fierce negotiators among them. As a consumer, however, unless you need something cheap to point at and laugh for about five hours, then walk away from with fewer brain cells than you started with, Indigo Prophecy is an easy pass.
David Cage: Sex QTE
Me: what
David Cage: Push the analog stick to FUCK
The thing about playing Quantic Dream stuff in 2024 is that we know it's not going to go well. Several years ago, it was possible to have a generous interpretation of David Cage's works by assuming he was just an eccentric man who adored movies and who was trying to make this new brand of adventure games work. QD's games are different from the norm, even if their quality is inconsistent and their content, often questionable. And yes, Cage does have a history of displaying an inflated ego in public, but one could excuse that as hustle from a person who has to confidently sell unusual ideas.
Of course, since the Quantic Dream lawsuits, looking at things kindly like that has gone from hard to impossible. It now is publicly known that the company is a cesspool, that its founders are crooks ("I'm not under oath, so can I lie?" is more unforgettable than any line in a QD game) and that the auteur at the center of it all is by no means a misunderstood genius, but a bigot and a jackass. Well, alleged bigot and jackass, one might say, as many of the cases are still on-going, but the problem is, the mere knowledge of what went on during those trials informs the consumption of the works and prevents any sort of charitable interpretation.
Why am I saying all this? Because Indigo Prophecy desperately needed a charitable interpretation.
Its opening is deceptively strong: The bathroom at a diner. A man inside the stall, shaking. Possessed by a cloaked figure. He gets up, opens the stall door. An older man, washing his hands. Doesn't see the first man walk up behind him. He falls to the ground and is stabbed, again and again. The murderer raises his head, his task done, and comes to his senses. His name is Lucas Kayne, and he will need the player's help in order to flee the scene without being caught.
Lucas is not the only playable character, however, as once he is home free, we cut to detectives Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles, who arrive at the scene of the crime to investigate the gruesome murder. These scenes very quickly and effectively establish a central mystery as well as a (criminally underused) cat-and-mouse game that our protagonists are about to play. There's tension and intrigue to work with, backed by surprisingly good voice acting for a game of its time, as well as an exceptional orchestral score by the late Angelo Badalamenti of all people.
All of which is wasted by the most worthless vision, starting with the thoroughly incompetent writing. Anyone who's read reviews for Indigo Prophecy has probably heard that the game falls off during the last third, and it must be clarified that those reviewers are overselling the story: in truth, the script's quality begins to decay almost immediately after the opening, completely jumping the shark by the halfway point. The final third is simply when time and money started to run out and plot points had to be compressed, but no investors or sequels could ever have saved such drivel.
To call the writing amateurish would be hyping it up: Indigo Prophecy is what one would get if they took an 11-year-old boy, took him to watch some of IMDB's top rated films, then asked him to pen his own movie. The result would likely be a jumble of incongruent themes and lousy plot devices, much like this one: Would you like a detective story, a supernatural one, or sci-fi? How about all three? Because IP is a game about mayans, AI, interdimensional bugs, the Force, the military, Dragon Ball fighting, visions, racist stereotypes, the Illuminati, getting impregnated by the undead, alien tech, secret societies of homeless people, irradiating the undead baby with the alien tech...
And that's not even mentioning the awkward rip-offs of famous and successful films: Silence of the Lambs, The Matrix, you'll know it when you see it. However, it's the power fantasy at the core of it is the most embarassing: Lucas Kayne is our 11-year-old's OC, a mediocre man at first that becomes The Chosen One, the almighty saviour of humanity, becoming ever more powerful in a barrage of scenes of escalating absurdity. Of course, he also gets to sleep with all the women, who for some reason find him irresistible.
Carla and Tyler, on the other hand, while initially promising to replicate the buddy cop dynamic from old police movies, become almost set dressing by the halfway point. Carla, in particular, has her personality and motivations entirely wiped by the end of the story in order to achieve a conclusion that's entirely centered on Lucas. There are three endings, entirely decided by the player's performance in the last scene, but whichever one the player gets, the story ends on an egregious note of Heavy Rain-grade bullcrap, and they're not even allowed the pleasure of an ending where everyone dies.
Speaking of Heavy Rain, as painful as it is to give any kind of credit to that game, Indigo Prophecy is the predecessor and it shows. The whole QTE gameplay was still getting figured out, and most of the scenes use this Genius-style UI that has you moving the analog sticks in the directions it shows to pass each scene. That it's garish is a given, but it's the nonstop prompts having nothing to do with the action onscreen that stings. In later games, there's far less inputs to perform and they all have something to do with the action and/or motion going on in the screen, fostering some sort of connection while allowing the player to watch what's happening.
Then again, early on in IP, you do push the analog stick forward over and over to make Lucas thrust into a woman, so maybe less connection can be good in some situations. It might sound like I'm making a big deal out of this, but it goes back to the idea of interpreting things charitably. Indigo Prophecy could maybe be written off as a camp classic if some credence could be given to its creators. Instead, the sex minigame reads as childish; the numerous movie rip-offs, "Citizen Cage" posters and "New Movie" instead of "New Game" in the main menu all register as pretentious slop; and the questionable depictions of race, gender and mental illness are perceived as intentional and heartfelt.
If anything, the fact that Quantic Dream got any investors for its later games after delivering this rubbish is a sign that, at the very least, they have some fierce negotiators among them. As a consumer, however, unless you need something cheap to point at and laugh for about five hours, then walk away from with fewer brain cells than you started with, Indigo Prophecy is an easy pass.